This
year in the annual observance of National
Poetry Month, I want to celebrate a voice or two who is fresh and new to
you, even if you are that rarest of mortal creatures in the dawning days of the
21st Century, an actual reader of
poetry. There a lots of folks out there
plying this craft with lesser or greater skill, but with a fierce determination
to be heard.
Nobody
is fiercer in that than determination than Jacqueline
Nicole Harris.
I
met her last year by happenstance when I was invited to emcee the Tenth District Democrats Poetry Slam,
an event that honors and Lake County, Illinois high school age poets and
writers. Jacqueline was one of the
judges of the blind competition. After
the program Laura Tomsky, prime
organizer of the event, introduced us. Jacqueline,
it turned out was a fellow Shimer
College alum, attending the small college when it was in Waukegan forty years after I went to the
old Mount Carroll campus.
Despite
are differences in age, sex, race, and background, there was a bond between
those who were exposed to the Great
Books in the intimate setting of Shimer around-the-table symposium
classes. We exchanged autographed copies
of our respective books. I got the
better of that trade.
My
first impressions of her were simple—large, intense, deadly serious about her
art. Her book, Random Acts of Verse was
intimate, confessional, confrontational, and unapologetic. Her voice was strong and unique.
Jacqueline
grew up in the 1980s, a child in the Black community of North Chicago influenced by the impossible dreams of the Disney perfect princesses and the betrayal of abandonment by a father she
adored. Self-described as large and
ugly, she grew up an emotional outsider in her own world, sustained by a fierce
intelligence and love of books.
She
grew into an instinctive rebel against anything. I was reminded of the classic line by Marlon Brando in the Wild
Ones when asked what are you rebelling against?—“What do you got.” Early on she learned to express herself in
words, eventually entering the world of Hip-hop,
spoken word performance, and poetry slams.
Comfortable in the new possibilities of the internet she sometimes
identified herself on-line as R.A.C.—Rage
Against Convention.
Active
in a lively club and spoken word scene in Lake County and the Milwaukee area, Jacqueline was in some
deep way betrayed by a close associate leading to her self-described nervous breakdown
and two periods of hospitalization. She
was likewise betrayed in love. All of
these experiences, how she learned to process and ultimately triumph over them,
became the grist for Random Acts of Verse.
One
of the most impressive things about Jacqueline is her determination to put her
work out into the world despite all of the obstacles that are in place for
poets outside the academic and little-literary-journals-that-no-one-reads that
offers the dim prospect of eventual public recognition. Dedicated to continuing to work in her home
community, she was even cut off from the wider spoken word circles in Chicago and other major areas that
offer their own paths to recognition.
With
the spirit of an entrepreneur Jacqueline plunged ahead to self-publish and
promote Random Acts of Verse. But don’t mistake that to mean that this is a
mere vanity project. The book is
beautifully conceived and produced as
a high quality trade paperback, marketed on amazon and Goodreads, and
promoted on line via facebook and
other social media. Of course it is
available for digital down load as well.
This
year she followed up with a spoken word and music CD release, My Time: The Words of Jacqueline Nichole
Harris and continues to do
readings and performances.
My
pick from her book, and there was a lot to choose from is Ghosts.
Ghosts
I am not afraid
of them—
living inside my head
synaptic impulses
of my brain
chemically
purging
them into
nothing.
They are
precious:
The sound of a
voice
The touch of a
hand
These are
already gone.
All I want is
The faces not to
fade
From sight when
I close
My eyes to
sleep.
I fear losing
them.
I love them.
They are
memories
Pale like the
white glow of
Moonlight in
shallow pools
Drying up ever
so slightly
One dream at a
time
—Jacqueline
Nicole Harris
Random Acts of Verse can be ordered
in print or Kindle versions at http://www.amazon.com/Random-Verse-Jacqueline-Nicole-Harris/dp/1461037042
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